Star Tribune
Downtown St. Paul’s largest property owner says city’s core is in ‘crisis’
A lawyer for the largest private property owner in downtown St. Paul lambasted the state of the urban center in a letter to the City Council, painting a dismal picture of downtown’s “very evident crisis.”
The letter, sent last week, objects to the nonprofit St. Paul Downtown Alliance’s efforts to expand its improvement district, which charges property owners fees in exchange for cleaning and safety services.
“Downtown St. Paul is in trouble,” attorney Kelly Hadac wrote. “Crime is up. Bullet holes in the glass on the commercial buildings and elsewhere is no longer uncommon. There is rampant homelessness and drug use. Restaurants have gone out of business. Businesses have gone bankrupt. Skyways are empty. Public and private employees are working from home. I could go on and on but we trust you understand the point.”
Hadac has long represented Madison Equities, downtown’s largest property owner, which is marketing its entire office portfolio following the death of the company’s longtime owner, Jim Crockarell. Crockarell was a longtime opponent of the Downtown Improvement District, which was eventually drawn to avoid his properties.
The tone of Hadac’s letter diverges from brokers’ messaging, which present the portfolio as an opportunity for a buyer to invest in an iconic landmark and prime location.
Hadac did not respond to a request for comment. In addition to Madison Equities, he filed objections on behalf of the owners of 266 7th St. E. and 249 7th St. E.
The letter urges the council to refrain from increasing costs for financially stressed buildings and questions why property taxes would not cover cleaning and safety services. Many owners already pay for private security and maintenance crews, Hadac wrote.
“Any increased tax dollars would be better spent elsewhere, including the hiring of more real police officers to provide enhanced safety,” he wrote.
Joe Spencer, president of the Downtown Alliance, said the improvement district is designed to provide services that go beyond the city’s capabilities. Since 2021, a team of uniformed ambassadors have patrolled downtown daily picking up trash, cleaning graffiti and offering help to those who need it.
Under Spencer’s proposal, the district would double its size and budget. The funds would pay for additional safety ambassadors with better training and equipment. Spencer has also suggested hiring a city attorney exclusively dedicated cases involving chronic offenders and quality-of-life issues downtown — an idea Hadac called in his letter “absurd and illegal.”
The council is holding a public hearing on the proposal Wednesday afternoon and could hold a vote as soon as next week. After that, the fate of the expansion would lie in the hands of property owners. If those subject to 35% of the proposed service charges file objections with the city, the proposal is vetoed.
The original district was set up to avoid Madison Equities buildings, since Crockarell at the time owned enough property to single-handedly veto the improvement district.
“I think their letter is reflective of the experience in their buildings,” Spencer said. “And what I’ll say is it’s not the experience of all of downtown.”
Power outages can be brutal, especially when you have a freezer full of food in the dog days of summer.
The storms Monday and Tuesday with winds upward of 70 mph led to widespread outages across the Twin Cities metro. At the outage’s worst, 250,000 Xcel Energy customers were without power.
As of Wednesday evening, 95% of customers have had power restored, with about 12,000 still without power. Xcel expects to restore power to all customers by Thursday evening. But with more storms on the way, some customers may wonder how power restoration works and how areas are prioritized.
Here’s what you need to know about how power is restored.
What is the process to reconnect power?
Xcel wants to make the biggest impact when restoring power. Crews zero in on an area where they can get the most customers’ power back on at once, said Trisha Duncan, director of Minnesota community relations at Xcel.
“If you think of it as like a tree, the trunk is where they go first, because that gets the largest amount of customers back on first,” Duncan said. “Then they work into the branches, which you could think of as a neighborhood, and then they work into the leaves, the individuals.”
Those still without power are likely part of smaller outages affecting a few customers at a time.
The trouble with the measles virus is that it can linger in the air for up to two hours, presenting an infection risk even after an infected person is no longer around. The disease often begins with cold and fever symptoms and a characteristic, itchy rash that spreads from the head to the rest of the body.
About a third of the cases this year have required hospitalization. One has involved an adult.
The start of school raises the risk of spreading the virus, along with the Islamic Association of North America Annual Convention on Sept. 1 and the Minnesota Muslim Convention on Sept. 14. Health officials urged unvaccinated people to avoid these events if they may have been exposed to measles.
“We want the health and safety of all of those attending, and our broader community, to be a top priority,” said Sheikh Yusuf Abdulle, executive director of Islamic Association of North America.
Vaccine hesitancy has been a growing problem, beyond Minnesota’s Somali community, since the COVID-19 pandemic. The share of kindergarteners in Minnesota who are up to date with the measles, mumps and rubella shots has fallen from nearly 93% in 2020 to 87%.
Star Tribune
Harris and Walz kick off a 2-day bus tour in Georgia that will culminate in Savannah rally
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign launched a new ad across the battleground states, seeking to tie Trump to the conservative ”Project 2025.”
The first ad asserts that Trump is ”out for control” over voters, juxtaposing Trump quotes with ominous screenshots of the plan. It’s part of Harris’ $370 million in digital and television ad reservations between Labor Day and Election Day.
Led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Project 2025 is a detailed 920-page handbook for governing under the next Republican administration, including ousting thousands of civil servants and replacing them with Trump loyalists and reversing the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of medications used in abortions.
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, though it was drafted by longtime allies and former officials of the Trump administration. Last month, he posted on social media that he had not seen the plan, had ”no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”
